Trust Appoint the Melting Pot to Help Develop Social Innovation NI

26 November 2015

The Building Change Trust are pleased to announce the Melting Pot have been appointed to help develop our exciting new Social Innovation NI initiative.

The Melting Pot is Scotland’s Centre for Social Innovation based in the heart of Edinburgh. Since opening in 2007 they’ve been providing a range of dynamic resources for social change makers, enabling them to work, meet, connect and learn from each other.

They pioneered coworking in Scotland and work with a diverse spectrum of people and organisations - all sectors and all sizes – and all involved in making the world a better place. They’re a social enterprise with charitable status whose aim is to stimulate and support social innovation.

They will be facilitating a co-design process, which means providing space for an open dialogue to generate a shared direction between all of the organisations, individuals and departments who have a role in supporting and enabling social innovation in Northern Ireland.

Claire Carpenter, MD and founder of ‘TMP’ said “We’re delighted to facilitate this important national conversation in NI and help to emerge whatever there is an appetite for.

"We’re passionate about understanding and creating the right conditions for social innovation to flourish. Ultimately SI NI is all about creating a positive culture and supportive ecosystem for people who boldly lead on creating a positive impact in our world.

"That may be through a pioneering new idea or tried and tested methodologies and that may be scaled or replicated. People are at the heart of what we do, and who we do it for.

"This will be an interesting and stimulating process for attendees that we hope people enjoy as well as become motivated to get behind SI NI. Let’s get to work”.

Paul Braithwaite, who heads up the Trust’s work in Social Innovation, said: “Social Innovation NI will be a ‘one stop shop’ through which social innovations in Northern Ireland can access practical and financial supports for social innovations at all stages - whether brand new ideas, prototypes needing testing, or proven, transformative approaches that are ready to be implemented at scale.

“We aim to create the space for this to happen by inviting all the key stakeholders – VCSE organisations and networks, funders, government departments, public agencies and private companies - with a commitment to enabling or practicing social innovation in Northern Ireland to engage with us in co-designing a collaborative approach that enables us to be ‘more than the sum of our parts.

“The Melting Pot are the perfect organisation to help us bring this idea to life, having been the social innovation leading organisation in Scotland for a number of years.

“The Trust are really excited to work with them and we think the rest of the Northern Ireland Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise sector will be as well.

“We believe social innovation can only really be impactful if it has buy-in from across all of society and all sectors, and the Melting Pot are going to help us make this happen”.

The Building Change Trust is a charity registered with The Charity Commission for Northern Ireland NIC103379 , its corporate Trustee, Building Change Trust Limited is registered as a company limited by guarantee in Northern Ireland NI071182

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